First Responders Challenge Wealthy Polluters
Protection, courage, kindness, fairness – these are words I think of when I imagine firefighters and emergency relief workers. Stepping up and ready to put themselves at risk to protect people and the environment when disaster strikes.
Disasters such as fires, heatwaves, floods, avalanches, and typhoons are becoming more frequent and severe as the climate warms. Fire chiefs worldwide have emphasised the increasing risks of climate change and the necessity for strategic planning, cooperation, and resources to enhance fire and rescue departments globally.
The United Nations Environment Programme warns that the frequency of wildfires might increase by 50 per cent by the end of the century. It further calls on governments “to radically shift their investments in wildfires to focus on prevention and preparedness.”
But the sad truth is that emergency services around the world remain underfunded and overstretched. Those brave people who are stepping up to help experience stress and exhaustion. All the while, shareholders and CEOs of fossil fuel corporations sit back and rake in unimaginable profits. The contrast could not be more stark.
First responders and trainers have been among the first to join the Polluter Pays Pact. An initiative to make fossil fuel corporations, not people, pay for the climate crisis.
Our vision is that governments shift rapidly and responsibly away from dirty energy sources like oil, gas, and coal to avoid even worse extreme weather in the future. At the same time, all first responder services must be well funded. We should invest in adaptation and the services we rely on when climate disasters occur. It is those who are most vulnerable and least responsible for climate change who should receive the most support.
And how to pay for that? Let’s start by recovering the money due from the oil and gas companies that have profited for decades from climate pollution.
These are just some of the hundreds of thousands of individuals and over 60 organisations that have joined the Polluters Pay Pact. If enough of us join now, we can inspire more first responders and unite many more climate-impacted communities, concerned citizens, politicians, humanitarian groups, economists and campaign organisations so that it becomes impossible for governments to ignore.
Sophie Allain is the Senior Portfolio Manager of Greenpeace International’s Oil Campaign, based in the United Kingdom.
Steve Wright, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union. Supporters of the Polluters Pay Pact in the United Kingdom.
https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/77111/why-first-responders-are-calling-out-rich-polluters/